The Shane Warne I knew
Towards the end of last year, I received an email from a PR Agency. Would I be interested in interviewing Shane Warne about the hair transplant technology he supports? Of course, I replied. Chatting to his assistant before she handed me over to Shane, she asked me what kind of feature I hoped to put together about hair loss. I burbled something about wondering why sportsmen so often seem to be involved in hair loss treatment ventures – Michael Vaughan and Ryan Giggs, for example. Are sportsmen less happy with going bald than mere mortals? Is it a vanity thing? Or a fame thing? But in truth, I didn’t give two hoots about the hair loss thing. I just wanted to speak to Shane Warne.
Thirty seconds later, he was on the line. “G’day, Shane here.” Ten minutes of conversation followed in which I tried to get into the whole hair loss debate. I asked him various pretentious questions about Aussie hyper-masculinity and cricket and whether his popular profile as a great showman on the pitch had made him more self-conscious about his image. To his great credit, he was not drawn into any of my clumsy “talking points”. He thought that hair loss was a bit of a confidence knock and we should be kinder to men who seek treatment for it (basically, no more sniggering allowed about botched jobs and holidays to Turkey).
He voiced some more general reflections too. The pandemic, he argued, marked a hinge point in public discussions about anxiety and mental illness. Talking through problems and being open about psychological difficulties was now more commonplace. And why shouldn’t that apply to hair loss – a condition that maddens and infuriates men (and women) across the world?
Before I hung up, I told him how honoured I felt to be able to speak to him, and how much joy he had given to lovers of cricket all across the world. “Aww thanks mate, that’s really nice of you to say. Appreciate it,” he replied. And you know what? I really, genuinely felt that he did appreciate it. There was no artifice about it, no false modesty, no cringing.
After our chat, I called a friend who had shared a one-on-one car journey with the cricketer about a decade ago (a story for another day). I’d actually mentioned him to Warne on the call, and he came across as rather delighted to be reminded of him: “Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I wish him all the best!”
On Wednesday, a memorial service was held for Shane Warne at the Melbourne Cricket Ground – the great and the good of the Australian cricketing world attended as well as various celebrities. The BBC ran a live feed, and people from all across the world wrote in. Some of them had met him in person. Ruth Brooksbank wrote in to reflect on meeting him at the MCG during the 2006-2007 Ashes tour: “I congratulated him on taking his 700th Test wicket in the match, and he genuinely seemed grateful that an England supporter took the time to say that. No rubbing it in about how rubbish England were playing, he just wished me a great time in Australia and happily posed for a photo. I’ve seen him around cricket grounds since then, taking time to talk to fans, always laughing and enjoying life.” Many other contributors shared similar sentiments – that the measure of the man was the way he treated fans in his fleeting encounters with them.
It all feels like a cruel joke that we should live in the one universe where Shane Warne happens to have died. I just can’t believe that he isn’t still out there. He just has to be. Unfortunately, the recording of our short conversation is lost to posterity. It was on the hard drive of my old computer which packed in a couple of months ago. But he must surely be out there somewhere, just doing his thing – a bit of commentary here, some reminiscing about the game and, just occasionally, skilfully spinning replies to dumb questions from callow journalists like me.